Mental health assessments made in a smart way — Why we invested in Thymia
We are excited to announce our investment in the London-based Entrepreneur First alumni company — Thymia. The Founders, Emilia Molimpakis and Stefano Goria, are building a solution to help psychiatrists assess depression through video games and subsequent analysis of video and speech patterns.
The demand for effective psychiatric assessments
The demand for psychiatry is continuously increasing and outgrows the supply of psychiatric services. At the same time, the current system for assessing conditions like depression is outdated and inefficient. The gold standard of assessment is based on questionnaires that are subjective, prone to bias and can be easily manipulated by the patient. As a result, there are frequent errors in both diagnosing depression and identifying the best treatment for it. Although a more objective metric-based system has been widely acknowledged to be desperately needed, it is extremely technically challenging to build and clinicians have not been given any better tools.
It still happens that the correct mental health diagnosis is made after years of getting to know the patient, resulting in critical delays in treatment. In fact, it is frequent to misdiagnose depression, Parkinson’s, or Alzheimer’s disease but also dehydration (!) leading to the prescription of wrong medication to patients. These are all cognitive disorders that form part of Thymia’s long-term focus.
Source: EF materials https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9TLbM9jaAA&t=9s
A declining number of psychiatrists worldwide
While the current workforce is aging, fewer and fewer people are going into the specialization of psychiatry because of the stress and anxiety connected to the job. Psychiatrists who deal with severe cases suffer mental issues themselves and are very prone to burnout. On the other end, some of the patients can be unpredictable, aggressive, and are at risk of suicide. Additional stress affects doctors’ judgment.
Thymia’s solution
Thymia uses video games based on neuropsychology alongside analyses of video and speech to make mental health assessments smart. These games collect and analyze speech patterns, visual cues and behavioural markers which when combined create a more robust model. Most of the competitors focus on one stream of data only, with voice being the most common one.
Thanks to the software developed by Thymia, the clinicians can find the correct diagnosis faster and to choose the right treatment objectively, at the same time being able to monitor the progress of the results at home.
While other solutions available on the market are focused on specific cognitive disorders, such as depression, anxiety, suicidality or Alzheimer’s disease, Thymia will be able to help with any cognitive disorder.
Besides helping out psychiatrists assess and monitor their patients more objectively and continuously, Thymia will also save a lot of time usually spent by clinicians on administrative tasks.
The Founding Team
Emilia Molimpakis (co-founder and CEO), originally from Greece, is a domain expert in cognitive disorders. She has over 10 years of experience working with patient populations using language as a biomarker for cognition. Emilia holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience & Linguistics from UCL.
Stefano Goria (co-founder and CTO), originally from Italy, has extensive expertise in explainable AI and multi-modal machine learning from his experience as a quantitative analyst in large investment banks such as Citibank and J.P. Morgan. Stefano holds a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from the University of Turin.
Are you building a startup relevant to C/S?
If you are a founder building a company in the area of digital health, we’d love to hear from you! Send us your pitch here: https://www.calmstorm.vc/pitch
